Nalukataq Inupiat Sculpture, c. 1950s

An Edmond J. Fitzgerald Portrait Painting for my Collection

I was lucky enough to win at auction this fine portrait by family friend, Edmond J. Fitzgerald, for the unbelievable bargain price of $75. Needless to say, I was quite pleased by my good fortune.

Edmond J. Fitzgerald

Edmond J. Fitzgerald

Edmond J. Fitzgerald

Edmond J. Fitzgerald

Edmond J. Fitzgerald

Rainbow Dancer Cloud

After I took this iPhone sunset shot at my apartment complex, I was struck by how the top cloud triggered an associative memory of a similar shape of a cast Navajo Rainbow Dancer pin I bought a few years back. Here's a photo of said pin for comparison... 

Don Mangus, "Rainbow Dancer Cloud at Sunset, Dallas, Texas," iPhone photo, 2015

Sand cast sterling silver Navajo Rainbow Dancer pin

Master Designer Charles Loupot

Charles Loupot

Charles Loupot

Charles Loupot

Charles Loupot

Charles Loupot

Charles Loupot (1892-1962) 

When Charles Loupot finished art school in Lyon in 1913, the first wave of French poster art was already history. Toulouse-Lautrec had died in 1901, Alfonse Mucha had left Paris, Eugene Grasset was almost forgotten, Jules Cheret was reported to be fed up with designing posters. There was yet no indication of a second, equally strong wave, and that Loupot would be one of it's leading figures, together with Cassandre, Carlu and Colin.

His beginnings, in Lausanne, Switzerland, were quite humble. In those times, clients often ordered their posters from a printer, who would in turn get suitable designs from artists. Apparently nobody was bothered when the same picture was used for two or even three different clients, and so we have, in 1917, an identical Loupot poster for a fashion shop in Lausanne and a department store in Lucerne.

However, Loupot's talent soon became obvious, and the number of commissions he received after 1918 for fashion and luxury goods makes it clear that his elegant and colorful designs were well sought after. By 1923 his reputation had reached Paris and he left Lausanne.

In 1924 the ''Canton'' furs store commissioned Loupot to create a new advertisement poster. (He created the first in 1919). The 1924 version features a beautiful woman, encased in a white fur against a black background.  In the 1930s, Canton ordered a second edition with a blue background and a third in 1949, also with a blue background, but with a new address at the bottom- 20 Rue de Bourg in Lausanne.

Andre Brasilier Paintings

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Andre Brasilier

Born into an artistic French family in 1929, Andre Brasilier has spent more than half a century creating canvasses that are a blend of abstraction, expressionism, and something distinctly his own.  His works often feature themes and motifs like horses, nature, music, and women.  Brasilier’s art is known around the world, from Japan to the United States.  He was recently the subject of an exhibition/retrospective at St. Petersburg, Russia’s renowned Hermitage Museum.

Karolina Tatarenkova: Self-Help Blog Post: Overcoming the Fear of NotBeing Good Enough

When was the last time you felt that you had to prove something to the people you love? How often do you doubt your ability and courage to achieve something you deeply desire?  How often you do you feel like you're never good enough for your parents, for example? No matter what you do, you never even get "That's great! I'm so proud of you!"  -- or maybe they do tell you so, but only on occasion.

When you feel that you're not good enough, you often find yourself in isolation, sitting in the dark room, abandoned and longing for love from the people you have never received much love from, even in your childhood. Here is a process for you to take on in order to be less likely to be lost in the fear of not being enough. 

Uncover the True Message

When you experience pain as a result of interaction with other people, it's because you tend to personalize everything they say or don't say, and take it to heart. I realize that the opinion of people whose love you have never received and always cherished is precious to you, like water in the desert. But it doesn't have to be. It's not all about you. Actions speak louder than words. You probably have heard this saying many time before. The actions through which they show you love are according to their dictionary of how love is expressed, not yours.  So, don't expect them to live life according to your terms. 

Nurture Self-Love

In order to expand the love you experience, you need to embark on a spiritual journey to discover unconditional love for yourself. Love is a choice, and if you have never experienced love, it's because you never chose to love. Love can be a healing force that unifies everybody. You can love somebody without needing anything in return from them. That's where freedom comes in.  

Embark on the Journey of Self-Discovery

I have a challenge for you over the next 21 days. Imagine that you're somewhere on an amazingly beautiful island, enjoying the sacred music of the ocean. You can't really see yourself because the sun shines so bright. From this place of serenity and tranquility, write down three things you love about yourself. The deeper you explore, the greater sense of totality and personal power will come in. 

What's Your Authentic Mission in Life?

I follow my passion and my heart. I know you do, too. Why is it that you still find yourself rushing to prove to others that you deserve to be loved and to love? Why? It's powerful question. We spend too much time trying to figure out why that we forget that it doesn't really matter.  It's rarely about why. 

If you rely on somebody's validation of your success, you will never be free. You will never be able to create art and fulfill your passion. It will be so easy for anyone to derail you off your path. The next time you are uncertain about your success -- reflect back on why you are in this business, this relationship, or this career in the first place.  

Direct Your Focus on Living Fully

Stop wasting your life and drowning in suffering because you have never had the love and attention that you deserved from your parents. You will create obstacles by focusing on what you can't have. By referring back to the memories of your parents never encouraging you for the great achievements that should have made them outrageously happy, you reinforce the limiting belief of not being good enough and worthy of people's attention.  

Have Fun Achieving Your Life Mission

Coaching and counselling people, I can confidently say that you can't force people to see from your own reality. We all have our own reality, and each reality is valid. Accept that you can't control people or even change their behaviour by telling them not to do something. We all have been emotionally wounded at some point of our lives.  

However, some chose not to allow that wound to stop them from finding fulfillment in life, whereas others continue picking that scab, never allowing it to disappear. It might have been their fault that they never loved you the way you wanted them, but it's your fault to allow it define who you are in the present.  


Let It Go

It might be scary to let go of the feeling of not being good enough. Maybe it's time to forgive and move on. You might think that not forgiving others for not loving you that way you wanted them to serves you as a protection. But it doesn't. A fearless life is life with passion and courage. In fact, it poisons you, your soul and your passion for life, because not only will they have robbed you in the past, they will have robbed you of the future as well. No one can take away your future from you.

Unforgiveness is self-fulfilling because it has everything to do with you and nothing with another person. You trap yourself in isolation and loneliness by trying to prove that you're worthy of love. It feeds this imprisonment. Problems need energy to live. Find people in your life who support you and empower you to become a better version of yourself.  

Continuously Realign Goals with Your Life Mission

Next time you feel like you're not enough for your parents, grandparents, lover etc., tell yourself the following: "Every time I'm wasting my energy on where I have been, I'm not going to have the energy, audacity and courage I need to energize where I'm going."

Let it go...You want to cry, cry. You want to ponder, ponder. But never ever again let anyone rob you of your happiness, authenticity and desires.

Paint by Number: Inventor Max Klein and Artist Dan Robbins

Paint by Number

Paint by Number (or Painting by Numbers) are hobby kits that have a board on which light blue or gray lines indicate areas to paint  -- each area having a number and a corresponding numbered paint to use. 

The kits were invented, developed, and marketed in 1950 by Max Klein, an engineer and owner of the Palmer Paint Company of Detroit, Michigan, and Dan Robbins, a commercial artist. In children's activity books, simpler activities are often presented to children and are titled Color by Numbers.

 History

In 1951, Palmer Paint introduced the Craft Master brand which sold over 12 million kits. This incredible public response induced other companies to produce their own versions of Paint by Number. The Craft Master paint-kit box tops boldly proclaimed, "A beautiful oil painting the first time you try." 

Following the death of Max Klein (in 1993), his daughter, Jacquelyn Schiffman, donated the Palmer Paint Co. archives to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. These archival materials have been placed in the museum's Archives Center where they have been designated collection #544, the Paint by Number Collection, and are available to both the public and museum staff for research and exhibition purposes. Artifacts which establish Max Klein as the inventor and main merchandiser of these items are part of the collection. 

In 1992, comedian and writer Michael O'Donoghue and Trey Speegle organized and mounted a show of O'Donoghue's Paint by Number collection In New York City at the Bridgewater/ Lustberg Gallery. In 2001, after O'Donoghue's passing (in 1994), the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History exhibited many key pieces from O'Donoghue's collection (now owned by Speegle), along with works from other collectors.

Since then, the vintage kits and paintings have experienced a resurgence through yard sales and eBay auctions. 

In 2008, a private collector in Massachusetts assembled over 6,000 Paint by Number works dating back to the 1950s (from eBay and other American collectors), to create the Paint By Number Museum, the world's largest online archive of Paint by Number works.

In 2011, The Museum of Modern Art in New York accepted four early designs (donated by Jacquelyn Schiffman) by Max Klein for its Department of Architecture and Design,

In May 2011, the original inventors of paint by numbers, Dan Robbins and Palmer Paint Products, Inc. developed and brought to market a 60th Anniversary Paint by Number set. This collector's set was created in memory of the survivors and those who had lost their lives on September 11, 2001, and depicts the Twin Towers still standing, in spirit, across the Manhattan skyline. A portion of the proceeds of this set is being donated to the charitable organization, Voices of September 11th.

Probiotics and Mental Health

By Carrie Arnold 

Her parents were running out of hope. Their teenage daughter, Mary, had been diagnosed with a severe case of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as ADHD. They had dragged her to clinics around the country in an effort to thwart the scary, intrusive thoughts and the repetitive behaviors that Mary felt compelled to perform. Even a litany of psychotropic medications didn’t make much difference. It seemed like nothing could stop the relentless nature of Mary’s disorder.

Their last hope for Mary was Boston-area psychiatrist James Greenblatt. Arriving at his office in Waltham, MA, her parents had only one request: help us help Mary.

Greenblatt started by posing the usual questions about Mary’s background, her childhood, and the onset of her illness. But then he asked a question that no psychiatrist ever had: How was Mary’s gut? Did she suffer digestive upset? Constipation or diarrhea? Acid reflux? Had Mary’s digestion seemed to change at all before or during her illness? Her parents looked at each other. The answer to many of the doctor’s questions was, indeed, “Yes.”

That’s what prompted Greenblatt to take a surprising approach: besides psychotherapy and medication, Greenblatt also prescribed Mary a twice-daily dose of probiotics, the array of helpful bacteria that lives in our gut. The change in Mary was nothing short of miraculous: within six months, her symptoms had greatly diminished. One year after the probiotic prescription, there was no sign that Mary had ever been ill.

Her parents may have been stunned, but to Greenblatt, Mary’s case was an obvious one. An imbalance in the microbes in Mary’s gut was either contributing to, or causing, her mental symptoms. “The gut is really your second brain,” Greenblatt said. “There are more neurons in the GI tract than anywhere else except the brain.”

Greenblatt’s provocative idea — that psychiatric woes can be solved by targeting the digestive system — is increasingly reinforced by cutting-edge science. For decades, researchers have known of the connection between the brain and the gut. Anxiety often causes nausea and diarrhea, and depression can change appetite. The connection may have been established, but scientists thought communication was one way: it traveled from the brain to the gut, and not the other way around.

But now, a new understanding of the trillions of microbes living in our guts reveals that this communication process is more like a multi-lane superhighway than a one-way street. By showing that changing bacteria in the gut can change behavior, this new research might one day transform the way we understand — and treat — a variety of mental health disorders.

FOR DECADES, RESEARCHERS HAVE KNOWN OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE BRAIN AND THE GUT

For Greenblatt, this radical treatment protocol has actually been decades in the making. Even during his psychiatric residency at George Washington University, he was perplexed by the way mental disorders were treated. It was as if, he said, the brain was totally separate from the body. More than 20 years of work treating eating disorders emphasized Greenblatt’s hunch: that the connection between body and mind was more important than conventional psychiatry assumed. “Each year, I get more and more impressed at how important the GI tract is for healthy mood and the controlling of behavior,” Greenblatt said. Among eating disorder patients, Greenblatt found that more than half of psychiatric complaints were associated with problems in the gut — and in some patients, he says he has remedied both using solely high-dose probiotics, along with normalizing eating.

Greenblatt’s solution might strike us as simple, but he’s actually targeting a vast, complex, and mysterious realm of the human body: around 90 percent of our cells are actually bacterial, and bacterial genes outnumber human genes by a factor of 99 to 1. But those bacteria, most of which perform helpful functions, weren’t always with us: a baby is essentially sterile until it enters the birth canal, at which point the bacteria start to arrive — and they don’t stop. From a mother’s vaginal microbes to hugs and kisses from relatives, the exposures of newborns and toddlers in their earliest years is critical to the development of a robust microbiome.

GREENBLATT IS ACTUALLY TARGETING A VAST, COMPLEX, AND MYSTERIOUS REALM OF THE HUMAN BODY

In fact, recent research suggests that early microbiome development might play a key role in at least some aspects of one’s adult mental health. One 2011 study out of McMaster University compared the behaviors of normal eight-week-old mice and mice whose guts were stripped of microbes. Bacteria-free mice exhibited higher levels of risk-taking, and neurochemical analysis revealed higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol and altered levels of the brain chemical BDNF, which has been implicated in human anxiety and depression. “This work showed us that anxiety was normal, and that the gut-brain axis was involved in that,” Jane Foster, the study’s lead author, said. “Everybody knew that stress and anxiety could lead to gastrointestinal symptoms, but we looked at it from the bottom up and showed that the gut could communicate with the brain. It was the first demonstration that the gut itself could influence brain development.”

Subsequent research out of McMaster further enforces those findings, by showing that swapping one mouse’s gut bacteria with that of another can significantly alter behavior. Researchers transplanted microbes from one group of mice, which were characterized by timidity, into the guts of mice who tended to take more risks. What they observed was a complete personality shift: timid mice became outgoing, while outgoing mice became timid. “It’s good evidence that the microbiota houses these behaviors,” Foster said.

While researchers have established a compelling link between gut bacteria and mental health, they’re still trying to figure out the extent to which the human microbiome — once it’s populated in early childhood — can be transformed. “The brain seems to be hardwired for anxiety by puberty and early adolescence,” Foster said. If the microbiome is part of that hardwiring, then it would suggest that once we pass a certain threshold, the impact of bacterial tweaks on problems like depression and anxiety might wane.

In one Japanese study, for instance, researchers were only able to change the baseline stress characteristics of germ-free mice until nine weeks of age. After that, no variety of bacterial additions to the mice’s guts could properly regulate stress and anxiety levels. The explanation for this phenomenon might lie in what’s known as “developmental programming” — the idea that various environmental factors, to which we’re exposed early on, greatly determine the structure and function of organs including the gut and the brain.

“There are changes that happen early in life that we can’t reverse,” said John Cryan, a neuroscientist at the University of Cork in Ireland and a main investigator at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre. “But there are some changes that we can reverse. It tells us that there is a window when microbes are having their main effects and, until this closes, many changes can be reversed.”

Even if our gut bacteria carries the biggest influence when we’re young, experts like Greenblatt and Cryan are still convinced that tweaking these bacteria later in life can yield profound behavioral and psychological changes. In a study led by Cryan, anxious mice dosed with the probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus rhamnosus (JB-1) showed lower levels of anxiety, decreased stress hormones, and even an increase in brain receptors for a neurotransmitter that’s vital in curbing worry, anxiety, and fear.

John Bienenstock, a co-author on that study, compared the probiotics’ effects to benzodiazepines like Valium and Xanax. “The similarity is intriguing. It doesn’t prove they both use the same pathway [in the brain], but it’s a possibility.”

Although plenty of questions remain, the benefits of using probiotics to treat human behavior are becoming increasingly obvious. Yogurts like Dannon’s Activia have been marketed with much success as a panacea for all of our intestinal ills. Other probiotic supplements have claimed to support immune health. Probiotics’ potential to treat human behavior is increasingly apparent, but will manufacturers one day toss an anxiety-fighting blend into their probiotic brews?

EXPERTS ARE CONVINCED THAT TWEAKING THESE BACTERIA LATER IN LIFE CAN YIELD PROFOUND BEHAVIORAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGES

It’s a distinct possibility: in one 2013 proof-of-concept study, researchers at UCLA showed that healthy women who consumed a drink with four added probiotic strains twice daily for four weeks showed significantly altered brain functioning on an fMRI brain scan. The women’s brains were scanned while they looked at photos of angry or sad faces, and then asked to match those with other faces showing similar emotions.

Those who had consumed the probiotic drink showed significantly lower brain activity in the neural networks that help drive responses to sensory and emotional behavior. The research is “groundbreaking,” Cryan said, because it’s the first trial to show that probiotics could affect the functioning of the human brain. Still, he notes that the results need to be interpreted with care.

As the research community increasingly lends credence to Greenblatt’s ideas, and public awareness about gut bacteria grows, he’s confident we’ll soon know more about the power of probiotics. “Because of the commercials and the other information that’s out there, patients are beginning to ask,” he said. “They’re much more aware of how important probiotics are.”

Whether all of our mental woes respond to probiotic treatment as dramatically as Greenblatt’s patient Mary remains to be seen. “We have to be very cautious in this field not to be too hyperbolic about what we promise,” Cryan said. Indeed, scientists still aren’t sure exactly which microbial species are part of a healthy microbiome, nor do they know whether certain bacterial strains are absolutely vital to mental functioning, or whether the right balance is what’s key. Furthermore, research still hasn’t parsed which illnesses might be affected by the microbiome and, therefore, treatable using probiotics. “There are beginning to be suggestions that this type of probiotic treatment is worth pursuing,” Bienenstock said. “Whether we can use this to improve people’s lives, well, the door is just beginning to open on this.”

Frederick Judd Waugh: Polar Painting

Frederick Judd Waugh

Robert Lougheed Pulp Illustrations

I won these two swell pieces on eBay. What a superb animal draftsman Robert Lougheed was...

Robert Lougheed

Robert Lougheed

Robert Lougheed

Robert Lougheed

Two Sam Gummelt Paintings

Sam Gummelt 

Sam Gummelt

Sam Gummelt is an American visual artist who was born in 1944. Sam Gummelt has had several gallery and museum exhibitions, including at the Talley Dunn Gallery. Several works by the artist have been sold at auction, including 'Untitled' sold at Sotheby's New York 'Property from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection' in 2008.

While Texas Funk was taking the stage in the early 1970s, Gummelt’s restrained, quiet works were also receiving significant recognition. His work was included in a 1972 show of Texas Artists that traveled to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis after showing at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Hailing Ice Cubes at the Lakewood Starbucks

Don Mangus, "Hailing Ice Cubes at the Lakewood Starbucks, Dallas, Texas," iPhone photo, 2015

New Lassie Illustration Art Purchase

Just when I think I'm out of collecting illustration art -- they pull me back in with these fun Lassie illustrations offered on eBay...

Al Andersen art

Harry Timmins art

Harry Timmins art

Harry Timmins art

Harry Timmins art

Al Andersen art